Book review: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Another party to which I've come late, but having read Lisa See's Shanghai Girls series - I knew I would enjoy this one, and I did!

In See's sweeping multi-generational way, this book covers many aspects of rural Chinese life. The tradition of foot binding and concept of "mother love" were very well portrayed and very interesting to me. Even though they're seen as "worthless branches of a tree," women's stories are the ones that garner the most interest, I think, because the readers come to know not only the woman's true worth, but also can try to understand the harsh environments in which they're forced to live.

Book review: The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice

I'm late in reading this, primarily because Anne Rice had fallen off my radar in the past few years. I LOVED LOVED LOVED her vampire chronicles and her Mayfair Witches, but never really got into her more Christian writings of late. I did have the chance to meet her and her son Christopher at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona last month

(photo to come)

For this signing event, I purchased her newest novel The Wolves of Midwinter, knowing it was the second in a series. I'd originally intended to get the ebook of The  Wolf Gift through OverDrive, but at the store, I just couldn't resist having her sign it too :)

To quote Alan Cheuse from The Boston Globe: "I want to howl at the moon over this... Rice's style [is] as solid an engaging as anything she has written since her early vampire chronicle fiction." I TOTALLY agree :) One of the reasons I wasn't as drawn in by her Christian fiction was that I felt it lacked the poetic style of her earlier writing - and that was what I loved about her as an author. With The Wolf Gift, this style returns for me as a reader and with a whole new mythology to create, she's got a lot of options! Looking forward to more from my (once again) favorite author!

Book review: My Enemy's Cradle by Sara Young

My, oh my, do I love OverDrive and my library! I checked this book out through my public library's OverDrive app and read it on in my internet browser. I wouldn't say that this book is a departure from what I usually read, but it is a book I hadn't heard of prior to checking it out. This novel is set during World War II, in the Netherlands and Germany, and follows the story of Cyrla. Cyrla is a Jewish girl who is sent to live with her Dutch aunt, uncle and cousin by her father who rightly thinks the lives of Jews will be increasingly tested. Her cousin, Anneke, falls in love with a German solider and she becomes pregnant. Anneke's father plans to send her to a Lebensborn, but she takes her own life while trying to abort her baby. At the same time, sanctions on Jews are increasing and Cyrla suddenly finds herself in danger. To save her, Cyrla's aunt decides to make it seem as though Cyrla was the one who died, therefore giving her the ability to take on her cousin's identity and escape. This was a very quick read, but good. I think the author did her research, and really let readers into a world that I knew very little about. Stories of Dutch Jews are interesting to me - and I've read a lot about Anne Frank and Miep Gies (the woman who helped hide the Frank family) The Lebensborn were a portion of WWII/German history that I didn't know much about though. I would recommend this novel for a quick read, but still well-researched and well-written.